


you're the rising sun

by dollsome



Category: Reign (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-05-18
Packaged: 2018-06-09 04:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6890797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dollsome/pseuds/dollsome
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He is here, he is here and alive and free and hers.</i> Greer and Castleroy, after "To the Death."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're the rising sun

**Author's Note:**

> A coda for my Reign otp's super super surprise happily ever after. Who saw that one coming?? I wish that we had gotten to see them together for longer so they could talk through some stuff, but hey, what is fanfic for?
> 
> Title is from "Bloodline" by James and the Wild Spirit, which is the song that played during Greer & Castleroy's wedding.

The carriage jostles them around for what feels like centuries; they sit in tense silence, side by side but not touching. Aloysius looks rather dazed. Greer stares out the narrow sliver of uncurtained window at the countryside; already, the sights are unfamiliar. It feels surreal to have lost and gained so much in such a short time.

When he does speak at last, it surprises her.

“Is it his?”

“Whose?”

Her husband only looks at her. Those struggles feel so long ago that it takes Greer a moment to understand what he means.

“Leith’s? Oh, no. Of course not.”

Aloysius bristles. “It wasn’t a ridiculous idea.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Greer hurries to assure him. “I know that he was always more ... present than he should have been during our time together. He and I ...” She bites her lip. “We did resume our romance for a time. I was so lost, and he was a comfort to me. But we parted ways. We just wanted such different things. He’s moved onto someone much better.”

“I find that hard to believe,” Aloysius says. Greer can’t tell if it’s a compliment to her or a slight to Leith.

“Oh, it’s true,” Greer says as cheerily as she can. “He’s courting royalty now. The Princess Claude is his new beloved. They make quite a good couple, in fact; she’s every bit as devoted to him as he is to her, which is exactly what he deserved. He’s determined to rise enough in station to be worthy of her, and if anyone can do it, it’s him.”

“I admire his persistence,” Aloysius says wryly, with a hint of a smile. His eyes go back to Greer’s belly. “Then who—”

“A random dalliance,” Greer says. Might as well come out with it. “I was so used to being surrounded by sex used for comfort, for a night’s enjoyment and nothing more. I suppose I wanted to try it myself for once; I didn’t think I would ever see you again, and being with Leith showed me that I was hardly the sort of woman that a man would want for his true love. So I thought that maybe dalliances were my lot in life, if I was to have any sort of romantic future at all. I figured I could forget all about it if it was unsuccessful, since I barely knew the man. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

Aloysius just stares at her. She can’t begin to read his expression. It makes her nervous.

“You’re probably wondering why I was surrounded by sex in the first place,” she prattles on. “As it so happens, I became a rather successful madam in your absence. Just in case you weren’t already scandalized enough. It was an accident at first, but I developed quite a knack for it. Also, the baby’s father was a pirate. I only met him on two separate occasions. Once he brought Mary a tiger.”

Aloysius stares at her for a long while.

Then, blessedly, he begins to laugh.

Greer smiles as she watches the weariness fall of his face, replaced by amusement that borders on hysterical. His laughter is contagious, and for awhile the pair of them shake with laughing, overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all.

“You’ve accomplished so much while I was gone,” he says a little breathlessly when they’ve finally calmed down. “All I did was sit around and think, I’m afraid. And after awhile, even thinking became too difficult.”

His words kill the laughter stone dead. Greer feels them like a blow.

“I’m sorry,” he says at once. “I don’t want to seem as if I’m begging for pity—”

“Stop. You have my sympathy. Of course you do. I hate to think of how you suffered.” Greer presses a hand to his stubbly cheek. “I'm sorry that I didn't fight to free you sooner. But Mary was my only means of doing it -- I couldn't even get a letter to you on my own, though I tried -- and she and I were estranged for a time. And once we mended things, I didn't want to bring up the memories of the attack. She was raped by one of the intruders, you see, and--" Greer bites her lip, the memory still like a blade through her heart. "--and I couldn't bear to ask anything of her after that. And then she lost Francis, and I didn't want to remind her of more pain."

"I understand," Aloysius says, sorrow in his eyes.

"I should have had more faith in her. I should have known she would want to help." She strokes his cheek. "I can’t believe you’re here with me. It feels like a dream.”

“It does,” he agrees wearily. “All of it. I keep thinking I’ll open my eyes and be back there in the dark.”

Greer stares firmly into his eyes. “You’re here. You’re here with me, and it’s real.” She smiles ruefully. “After all, if you dreamt of me, it would hardly be me the madam with a baby all but bursting out of me. Your dreams would surely be full of the old Greer, with her sweet curls and maidenly dresses and ten thousand worries. Well. Perhaps the ten thousand worries still apply.”

He places his hand over hers. “I prefer you to any dream.”

Her uncertainty overwhelms her. She wants so badly for his words to be true. For him to really want her, even after everything. “Do you mean it?”

“We all do what we must to survive,” he says gently, and sounds more like his old self than he has since they reunited. “The important thing is that you survived.”

“And you,” Greer says. “We’ve spent quite enough time surviving apart; now let’s do it together.”

 

+

 

Once they’ve traveled far enough, they stop at an inn to rest. They call each other by their new names in front of the innkeeper. The innkeeper welcomes them heartily, and promises to send for a midwife when the time comes.

Standing in their room alone, they both take in the sight of the bed and the lumpy-looking chair in the corner of the room.

Aloysius says, “I can take the—”

“Oh, let’s not be stupid,” Greer says. “I won’t have you sleeping in an uncomfortable chair after all you’ve been through.”

“But you’re pregnant,” Aloysius protests. “Quite possibly more pregnant than anyone else has ever been.”

“Thank you for that,” Greer scowls. “But yes, I am very pregnant. Which means I’ll be uncomfortable wherever I am.”

“I won’t take the bed from you.”

She claps her hands together in a way that she hopes makes her seem firm and efficient. “So we’ll share the bed. We’re husband and wife, after all.”

They settle awkwardly into bed, leaving a careful bit of space between them, and Greer remembers kisses and tangled limbs and laughter. She hadn’t really allowed herself to think about what she’d lost before. If she had given into the thought that he was imprisoned for life, she wouldn’t have been able to get out of bed in the morning, let alone build a new life of her own. Looking forward was all she could allow herself. But now—

He is here, he is here and alive and free and hers.

The thought makes her jittery. It’s hard to believe in such good fortune after so many months of desperate planning and hopelessness.

She closes her eyes and tries to drift off to sleep, savoring the sound of his breathing.

A few minutes later, she is pulled into waking by the sound of his voice.

“The reason that I turned you down at first—it wasn’t because I was hurt by seeing you were with child.”

“Hmm?” She turns to look at him.

“Well, not only that. I’ll admit, the idea of playing father to Leith’s child stung. A pirate, on the other hand—I can work with that.”

Greer laughs sleepily.

“But I—I can barely remember how to talk, or to look someone in the eye. If I can’t endure even speaking aloud, or walking in the daylight on a crowded street, how can I be the man you want? How can I build a life worthy of you and your child?” The pain in his eyes wrenches her heart.

“ _Our_ child,” Greer corrects him firmly. “And you’re already the man I want; you always will be. So please don’t be hard on yourself. You’ve only just gotten out of prison. No one would be able to grow used to normal life again right away. But I’ll be here, by your side, and I know you. You’re so strong and so good, and there’s no way even the terrible suffering you went through could diminish that. And you’re not alone in building a worthy life, remember?” She pokes his shoulder. “We’re partners. And as I’ve discovered, I happen to be a very savvy businesswoman. Why, we could build a whores-and-spices empire the likes of which the world has never seen.”

He chuckles. “You’re a visionary.”

“I certainly am,” Greer says, playfully triumphant.

He takes her hand, and for a moment they just savor the feeling of each other’s touch.

Then, with a sort of deliberate calmness, he asks, “Do the children still live with my sister?”

Greer feels a surge of guilt, even though she’s tried her best. “They do. I’ve been sending money every month. I don’t know how they’re getting along, because she hasn’t written back except once to confirm it was the right address. Not that I can blame her. I didn’t explain how I came into the money, and she must have gathered that it was through unsavory means.”

“She loves them,” Aloysius says with conviction. “She’ll have put it toward their care.”

“Good.”

He lifts her hand to his lips. “Thank you.”

“You don’t have to thank me,” Greer insists. “They’re my family too, even if I didn’t get to know them as well as I would have liked to. Haven’t gotten to know them yet,” she corrects herself.

His gaze wanders from her to the ceiling, and turns troubled and pensive again. “Is it better to bring them along with us, or to leave them where their safety is assured?”

“We have all our lives to figure that out,” Greer says. “And we will. Tonight, let’s have a good night’s sleep.”

After a moment, he nods. He wraps an arm around her, pulling her closer, and she rests her head on his shoulder. Despite the fact that her whole body is uncomfortable, she hasn’t felt so peaceful in ages. In seeming lifetimes.

 

+

 

The baby is born, after hours of the purest misery Greer has ever known. Aloysius stays by her side all the while; she squeezes his hand until at least a few fingers surely must be broken (or at least badly bruised), but he murmurs encouragements to her all the while.

The baby is a girl. She is tiny and dark-haired and strong lunged (if her screams are anything to go by), and the most beautiful person Greer has ever seen. As soon as the baby is in Greer’s arms, it’s unfathomable to imagine handing her off to anyone, even a sister. Dizzily, she sends a thankful prayer to God that everything went so wonderfully wrong. 

“What shall you call her?” Aloysius asks from where he sits beside her. The softness she has always loved so much has returned to his face looking at the baby.

“Mary,” Greer says, all her lofty plans of French names abandoning her at once. “For my friend who gave you back to me. That and this little girl are the two greatest gifts of my life.” And then, looking at him, the rest of the name falls into place. “Mary Yvette.”

Aloysius smiles with shining eyes and kisses her, then presses a tiny kiss to little Mary’s hair.

“Perfect,” he pronounces.

And here in this shabby room in the middle of nowhere, stripped of titles and fortunes and certainty—stripped of everything she believed was so stiflingly necessary once—Greer kisses her beloved husband, and agrees completely.


End file.
